As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been feeling under the weather for a while now…and now that Katie’s sick again (she unfortunately passed her strep test, pretty standard for a first grader, although taking the test at home is a little unusual), I’m really busy between my own coughs and hacks. So Friday afternoon over lunch while Annie was home to keep an eye on the Peanut I had my first chance in weeks to get downtown to the Post Office, and when I got there I found some early Christmas presents…with a hint of cinnamon…

The first came from Dennis Crow, a long-time subscriber to and supporter of the Internet OTR Digest; he’s also a member-in-good-standing of the Cinnamon Bear Brigade, and works tirelessly to keep Paddy O’Cinnamon, Crazyquilt Dragon, and the rest alive and well each year around this time. Included in the packet he sent was a copy of the lyrics to the songs performed within The Cinnamon Bear, which will help turn this serial into a sing-along. When I got home, I showed the sheets to Katie, who immediately took them from me and carefully read through each page, asking about each of the unfamiliar words - she was particularly impressed that according to the included note it came from both Paddy and Dennis. We even tried to sing some of the songs together, which I’m sure drove music lovers in the area running and screaming for cover with the state our throats are currently in. (We’re making George Burns sound good right now…)

Katie’s hanging on to those sheets for me (to be honest, I don’t think I could have pried them out of her hands with a prybar)…and since we started listening a few days late this year, we should get to croak a few extra songs over the next few days as we catch up. And I should note that as Maybeland’s official ambassador, Dennis has offered copies of these lyric sheets to anyone who asks; you can contact him through his not-infrequent posts to the OTR Digest, or by dropping me a note which I’ll cheerfully forward, or by including your address in a comment to this post. If you listen to The Cinnamon Bear at this time of year, and you really should, these lyric sheets are guaranteed to add even more magic to the experience.

The other gift also included the faint odor of cinnamon bun crumbs…this was a package from the First Generation Radio Archives, and it contained the Premier Collection — The Complete Cinnamon Bear. Before I get to this, let me tell you what I had to do for the set we’ve been listening to…

Many years ago, I purchased The Cinnamon Bear from RadioSpirits, but I made the terrific mistake of purchasing it in CD format. So they could stuff too many episodes on each disc and thereby use less discs, RadioSpirits speeded up the episodes, to where he sounded more like Paddy O’MickeyMouse. I was forced to spool each episode into a Macintosh, speed-correct the resultant AIFF file, and re-burn onto disc and cassette. It was a royal pain in the arse and one heckuva lot of work (any wonder I consistently knock MediaBay?), but I ended up with a set that was listenable without everyone singing falsetto.

That set is now packed away. This newly-released set from First Generation is impressive…solid-quality sound from new transfers, an impressive set of “extras” (including the original sales presentation disc, and songs from the series taken directly from a set of 78rpm discs), and what I find most impressive, one does not need to be a member of First Generation to order…anyone can purchase a set of these seven audio discs. That’s an important distinction; you’ll get no MP3s here, no compression artifacts like download versions, but true audio CDs for your home or car decks. And to add even more value, at the First Generation website there are detailed liner notes for the package written by the afore-mentioned expert on all things four-inches tall, Dennis Crow, and including some fascinating photographs and artwork.

So now I simply pop the appropriate disc into the Audio computer I set up, tell the linux machine which episode I want to play, and it’s transmitted via a small FM transmitter all over the house, including into Katie’s bedroom where we all gather (even the cat) in the evenings to listen to the adventures of Jimmy, Judy, and Paddy. And thanks to the lyric sheets, we can even sing along with Fraidy Cat and Captain Taffy (”Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of…Pop!”).

I can’t thank Dennis, Tom, Vicki, and Harlan enough for making the run-up to Christmas Day special for our entire family. Folks, from the bottom of my heart, “I’m much obliged to you!”